An Arkansas law shielding kids from transgender medical procedures passed four years ago can now be enforced after a federal appeals court overturned a block on the legislation.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled Tuesday in an 8-2 decision to allow the Save Adolescents From Experimentation Act (SAFE) to go into effect. The law prohibits doctors from performing transgender procedures on kids and blocks them from referring kids for such procedures.
“The question is whether this Nation’s history and tradition, as well as its historical understanding of ordered liberty, support the right of a parent to obtain for his or her child a medical treatment that, although the child desires it and a doctor approves, the state legislature deems inappropriate for minors. This court finds no such right in this Nation’s history and tradition,” the majority wrote in their opinion.
The ruling comes just weeks after the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in June upholding Tennessee’s ban on transgender procedures for kids. The justices pointed to the Tennessee case multiple times throughout their opinion.
The law blocks procedures like removing the breasts of girls who identify as boys, genital procedures, and prescribing kids puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. These procedures have been shown to cause irreversible consequences for bone density, fertility, and development. Arkansas was the first state to pass such a law, and now over two dozen states have enacted similar legislation.
The law was first blocked by a district judge in July 2021 by a lawsuit from four minors living in Arkansas and two medical professionals. The suit claimed that the law violated the First Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection and Due Process clauses.
“To the contrary, the Act does not classify based on transgender status. Like the Tennessee law upheld by the Supreme Court, the Act effectively divides minors into two groups,” the judges wrote. “In one group are minors seeking drugs or surgeries for the purposes that the Act prohibits. In the other group are minors seeking drugs or surgeries for purposes the Act does not prohibit.”
The ruling was celebrated by Arkansas Republican officials who defended the law.
“I applaud the court’s decision and am pleased that children in Arkansas will be protected from experimental procedures,” Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said.
“This is a win for common sense — and for our kids,” Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders posted on X. “Arkansas’ first-in-the nation law to protect kids from life-altering gender experiments is back in effect!”